HONG KONG, CHINA
– Media OutReach – November 14, 2017 – There is a
growing need for cybersecurity professionals globally, and young professionals
need practical experience to hone the skills required to fill this void. Trend
Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, recognizes this need, and
recently hosted its third annual Capture the Flag competition to support
critical skill development by solving real-world cybersecurity challenges. This year’s competition was won by team
Egfr33ks who successfully deciphered challenges that tested players’ skills in various
categories, such as targeted attacks, Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial
Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA).

According to a report
from Gartner[1], 59
percent of surveyed companies have an urgent need for a security analyst and “the unemployment rate for cybersecurity professionals is zero.”2 Trend Micro’s 2017 Capture the Flag — Raimund Genes Cup aims to empower young professionals with
practical skills in the most demanding areas of today’s cybersecurity
landscape. Players earn valuable real-world experience that can be used in job
interviews and daily challenges faced in the workplace.

“We want to help
decrease the skills shortage that impacts organizations globally, as well as
continuing to make the world safer for the exchange of digital information,”
said Eva Chen, chief executive officer for Trend Micro. “The challenges posed
in this competition represent the future of the cybersecurity landscape. We
hope the skills learned here will be used to protect internet users from the
greatest areas of emerging threats.”

In this year’s Capture
the Flag, 1,431 teams from 91 countries participated in the online qualifier in
June, with the top 10 teams moving on to the finals in Tokyo, Japan. There were
22 teams from Hong Kong to participate in the online qualifier and the best
result was achieved by team “vxrl” who finished 104th.

The winning team “Egfr33ks”
received 1,000,000JPY (nearly 10,000USD) as prize money, automatic
qualification for the HITCON CTF 2017 final, and 15,000 Zero Day Initiative (ZDI)
reward points, which enable vulnerability researchers to earn more rewards when
submitting to the ZDI program.

Trend Micro has
several global initiatives that support cybersecurity education and
skills development. These have impacted more than 10,000 schools and 1 million
children, parents, and teachers worldwide to teach online safety from a young
age and inspire future security professionals to begin on this career path.

Trend
Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, helps to make
the world safe for exchanging digital information. Our innovative solutions for
consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data
centers, cloud environments, networks and endpoints. All our products work
together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat
defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster
protection. With more than 6,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s
most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to
secure their journey to the cloud. For more information, visit www.trendmicro.com.hk.